Disabled Student Services.† If you would like to request academic accommodations
due to a disability, please contact Disabled Student Services, 448 Schmitz,
(206) 543-8924 (V/TTY).† If you have a
letter from Disabled Student Services indicating you have a disability that
requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to me so we can
discuss the accommodations you might need for the class.†

††††††††††† I.† Course
Goals: This course will be based on the manuscript of a book that I
am writing to be titled Learning from Experience.† The manuscript defends a novel way of
understanding rational belief.† The main
idea is that most discussions of rational belief (or epistemic justification)
are based on a shared but mistaken presuppositions about the nature of
knowledge and rational belief that I refer to as the Proof Paradigm.† I propose an alternative framework for
understanding rational belief, which I refer to as the Implicit Sensitivity
Paradigm.† The course will be an
opportunity for me to present the ideas in the manuscript and for me to obtain
critical responses to the manuscript.†
The course will be taught in mixed lecture/seminar format.

††††††††††† II.†
Course Requirements:

††††††††††† 1.†
Class Attendance.† The
class meets TuTh from 11:00 am to 12:50 pm in Savery 131.† Everyone is expected to do the assigned
readings in advance and to attend class and to participate in the discussion.†

††††††††††† 2.† Email Assignment.† Each student is required to have an email
account and to check it regularly.†
Important announcements will be distributed by email.† Your first assignment (worth 5 points) is to
send me an email message with your name, student ID number, email address, and
a brief statement of your background in philosophy.† My email address appears above.†
Please feel free to contact me via email when you have a question or
concern.† You can usually count on
having a reply from me within 24 hours.†

3.† Course Readings.† See the separate handout of Reading
Assignments.† You are expected to have
done the assigned readings in advance of the first class session of the week in
which they are to be discussed.† There
are two required texts, and three course readers (Vols. 1-3).† The two required texts are

A.† Required Texts.† Available for purchase at the University
Book Store:† (a) Laurence BonJour, In
Defense of Pure Reason; (b) Robert Nozick, The Nature of Rationality.†

B.† Course Readers (Vols. 1-3).† Available for purchase at the Copy Center in
the Communications Building, Room B‑042.† Volume 1 of the course reader contains material that is also
contained in the Autumn 2002 PHIL 450 course reader, so purchase of it is
optional.† Volume 2 of the course reader
contains one reading (an excerpt from Nozick's book, Invariances).† Volume 2 is required.† Volume 3 of the course reader contains parts
of my book manuscript.† Volume 3 is also
required.†

††††††††††† 4.† Weekly Response Paper.† Each Thursday will be devoted to critical
evaluation of the issues raised in the week's readings and class
discussion.† Each student will turn in a
2-page reflection on some important issue from the readings.†

††††††††††† To obtain full
credit for the weekly written assignment, you must send it to me as an email
attachment before class on the day it is due and you must attend class on the
due date prepared to discuss it.† DO NOT
SKIP CLASS TO FINISH YOUR RESPONSE PAPER.†
Students who have an unexcused absence on the date when a response paper
is due will incur a further penalty on their papers, IN ADDITION TO the penalty
for lateness.

††††††††††† 5.† Discussion Leader and Critical Review
Paper.† Each student in the class
will lead one of the Thursday discussions.†
Each student must sign up for a Thursday discussion session by the end
of class on Thursday, Jan. 9.† Sign-ups
for discussion leader will be on a first come, first served basis, so the
earlier you sign up, the greater your choice of topics.† After the discussion session, the discussion
leader will prepare a 5-page critical review of the one or more of the most
important issues discussed.† (This
critical review paper may be a development of your 2-page response paper, but
it need not be.)† The critical review
paper is to be turned in the following Tuesday.†

††††††††††† 6.† Term Paper.† Each student is required to prepare a term paper (10-15
pages).† Any of the issues discussed in
the course could be the basis for a term paper.† I will provide many suggested term paper topics during the
course.† All term paper topics must be
discussed with me and approved by me on or before the end of class on Tuesday,
March 4.† Your term paper may be a
development of your critical review paper or a development of one of your
response papers, but it need not be.†
You are strongly encouraged to submit a draft of your term paper to me
for comments, before you prepare the final version.† The deadline for submitting term paper drafts is the beginning of
class on Thursday, Mar. 13 (though you are encouraged to submit them before
that date).† Drafts should be submitted
as an email attachment.† I will do my
best to have comments on all drafts returned via email by sometime on Friday,
March 14.† The deadline for submitting
the final version of the term paper is 5 pm on Wed., March 19.† The final version should also be submitted
as an email attachment.†

IN PREPARING ANY WRITTEN WORK FOR THIS COURSE, PLEASE BE
SURE TO CONSULT THE PAPER GUIDELINES (HANDED OUT SEPARATELY).

†††††††††††

††††††††††† III.† Extensions
Of Time.† Reasonable
extensions of time will be granted, if they are requested in advance of the
deadline.† Unexcused, late work will be
penalized.† However, late work still
earns partial credit.† The last time to
submit late work is 5 pm on Wed. March 19.††
I DO NOT INTEND TO GRANT ANY INCOMPLETES, EXCEPT IN CASES OF GENUINE
EMERGENCIES.†

IV.† Academic
Integrity. Whenever you turn in any assignment in this course, the
understanding is that what you are turning in is your own original work, except
to the extent that you explicitly credit others for their contributions. You
have an obligation to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, by
always attributing any argument or idea that you have borrowed, even if you
have modified it, to its source.† The
source may be written or oral.† For
example, if an argument was suggested by a fellow student, include that
information in a footnote.

††††††††††† VI.† Course
Evaluation.† The course
evaluation will take place during the final class session on
March 13.† The course evaluation is
your opportunity to evaluate my performance and to provide suggestions for
improving the class.†